White water thrills

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  Queenstown, South Island, New Zealand
Saturday, November 15, 2008

So after the encounter with the glacier we were on our way down to the adrenalin capital of the world, Queenstown.

The drive down was lovely right up until the point where I was driving down a lovely straight road at a very modest 118Km/hr, not particularly fast I'm sure you'll agree. Before you could properly smell the bacon the car heading towards me suddenly little up with blue and red lights. That's right, rozzers. The chap was actually very pleasant as he wrote out my speeding ticket and informed me of the 120 dollar fine that Becks was going to have to pay for distracting me and making me accidently drive too fast. So we'd managed a bit of adrenalin before we even got there, but that was nothing compared to the afternoons entertainment.... you guessed it...that's right.....hill luging!

After quickly dropping our bags off at the motel we went straight out to enjoy the hot afternoon sun and glorious blue skies that provided the backdrop to the lakes and mountains surrounding Queenstown

Rafting the Shotover river

. We took a gondola ride up the small mountain behind the main town where Becks informed me we could do some "luging"! She was very excited as she had been here and done that about 10 years ago with her travelling mate Fran when she was just a wee little monkey and could only dream of one day meeting a dark handsome hero called Steve.

After a nice cold beer looking out over the spectacular Queenstown landscape and a bit of nostalgic rambling from the sped master we donned our helmets for the terrifying luge ride!!! We must have been going at least 5 km/hr down the slope and if it wasn't for the breaks we would never have survived!! It was actually great fun racing and Becks just pipped me to the post on the practise run before I took the gold in the race proper. Unlucky sped. We stayed up on the mountain for a glass of wine and some tasty thai fish bites before heading down to get soem nosh from the super market. Tomorrow was going to be a day of reckoning and we needed some energy food to help us prepare.

I wasn't nervous. Honest. Today was all about the Shotover river. A glorious fast paced beast whose steep canyon walls harbour that precious yellow metal. The Shotover river is the second richest river in the world after the Ukon in Canada and was the reason behind the gold rush that created Queenstown

Chair lift to the go karts

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We had booked ourselves in for two river adventures. The first was a trip on the world famous "Shotover Jet". This is a bright red jet boat designed specifically to be able to navigate shallow fast rivers at breath taking speeds. The drivers train for about 7 years before they are allowed to ride the Shotover river, they are a bit like fighter pilots of the water ways.

The river is a beautiful bright blue/green colour and flows between steep grey rocky canyon walls. Large boulders lurch out of the frothing water with frightening frequency. The ride is wild and mental. The driver aims to skim the edges of the rock walls as close as possible making you think you need to duck. The thing is going around 85kmph at top speed which is extremely mental when travelling through a canyon that is about 12 metres wide! The best bit has got to be the 360s though. The driver gives the signal to hang on tight by whirling is arm around in a twisting motion, he then performs a full 360 turn, partially airborn, by slamming the boat around. We must have done about 10 360s on the trip up and down the river. Amazing stuff. Great fun and has to be experienced to be believed. At the top end of the river we had to stop and the driver told us we couldn't go any further because iot all got  a bit too hairy up there

Sunset in Queenstown

. That was the realm of the white water rafters. That was what we were doing next. The driver said if that hadn't shaken the excrement out of us then the rafting certainly would. He wasn't wrong.

The rafting adventure started with a drive in a bus along the legendary Skippers Road. An old mining track only driven by complete lunatics, it's just rocky scree winding high above precipitous drops. Warning signs indicate that you are travelling at your own risk and the road is not suitable for buses or trailers. We're in a bus connected to a trailer dragging 5 massive inflatable river rafts. We're o.k. though because the driver's name is "Animal" and he's a fifth generation Skippers Rd driver.

We survive the 30 minute drive off death and arrive at the the starting point for the 1.5 hour raft down the Shotover. The rain has started to come down hard, the skies are grey and the air is cold and full of biting sandflies. The head of the rafting team does the safety brief. He is wearing a skull and cross bones life jacket. He informs us that not everyone who rafts this river comes back. He says it's not too late to turn back if you don't feel ready and able to tackle the river. Becks is quaking in her little boots.

Queenstown

There are about 5 rafts about to embark on the trip through rapids with names such as "toilet", "oh shit" and "the mother in law". Becks and myself are paired with a couple of canadian guys and another older English couple. We have two rafter guides at the back of the boat, which seems a bit odd but we think it must surely make us safer....

I'm at the front right of the boat and Becks is at the back right. That basically meant I had to do all the paddling and got all the massive soakings while Becks sat and enjoyed the scenery! Not really. That wasn't a huge amount of relaxing to be done. The rapids where awesome. Stupidly good/bad. Becks found it all very scary and was shaking by the end. I just loved it. There was one very scary bit though where time stood still and a few seconds stretched in to hours due to the incredible effects of adrenalin. The reaon we had two guides was because one was a rookie and he was being trained by the other guy. The trainee slightly misjudged one of the rapids and just as we were about to thrash our way down a particularly ugly stretch of frothing water we hit a rock. The raft tipped alarmingly to the side and for a minute I thought I was in the water. I managed to hang on as the raft came back down but the male half of the older English couple was missing, he'd gone in. The raft had spun around completely and we were now heaeding backwards down the rapid. I saw the man over board surfacing in the thrashing froth and he made a desperate lunge to grab the rope cord that runs around the raft. To my surprise he made it but his pain was just about to begin. As the raft charged down the rapid he was dragged along behind, spinning and being slammed in the head by the raft. He even went under the raft at one point. Skull anbd crossbones man now leapt into action and as we got to the bottom of the rapid he rushed to the mans aid and dragged him back onto the raft.

The chap was surprisingly calm. He didn't seem to accept that he'd just had a near death experience. Fair play to him but from where I was sitting it looked absolutely horrible.

The finale involved steering through a 180m tunnel of dark rock. I had the best seat as I was chosen to sit on the front of the raft and steer us through the tight tunnel. We only hit the sides of the rocks a few times at speeds that could take your head off but there you go.

We rounded the final corner and hurtled through the last rapid before gliding to a halt on a shingle beach to disembark. I was re-united with a shivering cold and terrified little Becks. Sitting at the back she got a better view of quite what we were dealing with whereas I was mainly concentrating on following the commands so we didn't hit rock. Brilliant stuff but definitely scary.

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